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September 17, 2009 03:42 PM UTC

Thursday Open Thread

  • 47 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“It’s wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope.”

–J.R.R. Tolkien

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47 thoughts on “Thursday Open Thread”

  2. “Tea Party protesters trying to tout the size of their march on Washington last weekend have been passing around a photo of a packed National Mall. But the picture is years old.”

    Politifact asked Pete Piringer, public affairs officer for the D.C. Fire and Emergency Department, if the rally was big enough to fill that space. Piringer said no — and moreover, the picture can’t be from 2009.

    “It was an impressive crowd,” he said. But after marching down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol the crowd “only filled the Capitol grounds, maybe up to Third Street,” he said.

    Yet the photo showed the crowd sprawling far beyond that to the Washington Monument, which is bordered by 15th and and 17th Streets.

    There’s another big problem with the photograph: it doesn’t include the National Museum of the American Indian, a building located at the corner of Fourth St. and Independence Ave. that opened on Sept. 14, 2004. (Looking at the photograph, the building should be in the upper right hand corner of the National Mall, next to the Air and Space Museum.) That means the picture was taken before the museum opened exactly five years ago. So clearly the photo doesn’t show the “tea party” crowd from the Sept. 12 protest.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

  4. A few months ago when we had a rather lively debate on the subject of EFCA on this here blog, I recieved much scorn from my fellow Democrats based on my opposition to the abolition of the secret ballot contained in the bill.  

    Imagine my shock to learn that the object of the affection of quite a few of the more liberal democratic posters here and newly announced Senate Candidate Andrew Romanoff, shares my exact view on this very issue.

    I wonder if his, quite sensible in my estimation, position on this issue is giving anyone pause in supporting his candidacy….

    1. I’ve been wondering for a while whether labor didn’t put card check in to have something to negotiate away.  Sure they’d like it, but the other parts of the bill seem at least as helpful to labor and aren’t catching the heat.

      That said, I don’t think it was wise of Romanoff to make this a big deal as one of his first positions taken.  He wants to distinguish himself from Bennet (and hence Ritter), not remind people of Ritter with his labor-antagonizing ways.

    2. I was kind of undecided in this primary, but Romanoff’s language makes me absolutely uninterested in him. Might as well keep the guy you already have if the new guy offers no improvement whatsoever. Besides, the only thing I know about Romanoff is his extremely disappointing and unsuccessful campaign for Amendment 59.

    1. Might not be the best terraforming candidate though:

      “It is so close to the star it orbits “that the place may well look like Dante’s Inferno, with a probable temperature on its ‘day face’ above 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit (2,000 degrees Celsius) and minus-328 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 200 degrees Celsius) on its night face,” “

      1. Imagine a ring around the planet with a moderate sort of temperature.

        I guess it wouldn’t work without an atmosphere, and with an atmosphere the temperature couldn’t be that sharply divided, but it might make a cute scifi story for those inclined.

  6. Everything could change

    During arguments in a campaign-finance case, the court’s majority conservatives seemed persuaded that corporations have broad First Amendment rights and that recent precedents upholding limits on corporate political spending should be overruled.

    But Justice Sotomayor suggested the majority might have it all wrong — and that instead the court should reconsider the 19th century rulings that first afforded corporations the same rights flesh-and-blood people have.

    Judges “created corporations as persons, gave birth to corporations as persons,” she said. “There could be an argument made that that was the court’s error to start with…[imbuing] a creature of state law with human characteristics.”

    http://online.wsj.com/article/…

    Bachus had me more than a little depressed, this cheered me up.

      1. The precedents are clustered around the turn of the 19th century.

        Sotomayor is saying that precedent might be wrong, like Brown v Board said Plessy was wrong or Lawrence v. Texas overturned Bowers.

        The Supreme court doesn’t reverse itself often so its a big deal when it does.

        But in truth, not likely to happen for a lot of reasons.

      2. …of the plaintiffs, corporations will have more rights than individuals since as an individual, my ability to contribute to campaigns is limited while that of corporations would not be.  

        The whole arguement that $=free speech is decidedly un-American, IMO.  

        1. We need to use language consistently.

          Here is a suggested question for the new CSAP:

          Consider a situation where you are pulled over by a police officer. He walks up to your vehicle and asks for your license and registration. You offer him money.

          Is this an example of you exercising your right of free speech?

          Or is it a bribe?    Explain.

          😉

          2. …back when the country was being expanded Westward and that expansion was dependent on the railroads, I certainly don’t think that giving corporations the same (or more) rights as individuals was what the Founding Father’s had in mind.  

            I doubt they envisioned a system where $ was equated with free speech and therefore endowed the rich and powerful to rule in a plutocratic manner.  

              1. They thought it should be elite Individuals, not corporations.

                John Hancock who was both a major industrialist and the man who created the US insurance industry (insurance was invented as a form of risk sharing by ship owners) did not attempt to put protections of corporate rights in to our founding documents (I don’t think he was on the CC that came up with the constitution, but I can’t remember).

                The notion that corporations would be this powerful would have shocked the conscious of the founders.  At every turn they sought to balance the powers of various interest groups, they gave us the 3 branches to limit the power of any one, they gave us federalism to balance the states v fed and they gave us the bill of rights. If you read the bill of rights its very specific court & process rights to protect the individual against the government.

                I firmly believe that the founders would see corporations as a major threat to individual liberty if they were alive today.

              2. …as I recall from my days of studying the American Revolution, the original teabaggers were protesting a tax levied by a government on behalf of a large corporation (the British East Indian Tea Company).  This was a key event in the growth of the Revolution.  Are you saying that the Founding Father’s did not comprehend the significance of this event when they were setting forth the documents that defined our Nation?

                Only a fool would think that a society could survive without someone to lead it.  The Founders were no fools.  In those days, the elites were not only monied, but also the educated.  Of course they saw themselves as the natural rulers–but as individuals, not as corporations.  

                  1. …women and children were chattel too.  Not really the issue at hand.  Human rights are not the same thing as giving corporations the same rights as individuals.  

                    The point is that I don’t see how the “original intent” faction of the USSC can conclude that corporations are entitled to the same rights as an living, breathing, feeling individual.  Or to conflate money and “free speech”.

                    In fact, this line of judicial thought was  the result of an off-hand dictum by written by CJ Waite that corporations were “persons” under Section 1 of the 14th amendment, not the actual ruling on Santa Clara v. SP RR in 1886.  

                    Further, by the very definition of corporation, there is no assumptions of awarding rights granted to individuals.

                    A body that is granted a charter recognizing it as a separate legal entity having its own rights, privileges, and liabilities distinct from those of its members.

                    Sotamayer is right–it was a badly decided precident to begin with and remains so.  Time to correct that wrong once and for all.    

                    1. I don’t disagree – corporations have too much autonomy and power. Practically the only check on them is that they can go out of business.

    2. It would mean that corporate law would change, but so would labor law. Since corporations are seen as individuals, so are unions (someone correct me if I’m wrong here, I’m not a lawyer).

    3. someone pointed out the real harms that judicial activism has perpetrated on this country.

      For example, corporations were awarded due process and equal protection “rights” under the Fourteenth Amendment long before African-Americans.

      Of the cases in this court in which the Fourteenth Amendment was applied during the first fifty years after its adoption, less than one-half of one percent invoked it in protection of the Negro race, and more than fifty percent asked that its benefits be extended to corporations.  

      –Justice Hugo Black

      (Connecticut General Life Insurance Company v. Johnson, Treasurer of California)

  7. I saw the coverage of the Romanoff announcement on Channel 9.  Not too impressive nor was the below the fold story in the Denver Post today.

    It was an impressive turnout at WashPark yesterday. Even better if he took in a large financial haul.  A lot of the hard core Mike Miles supporters are now fervently behind Romanoff.  

    1. But it was a good size crowd that must feel encouraging to the candidate and his team.

      AS to who his team is, I propose the team relevance  is weighted more demographicaly by team Clinton  than by team Miles, though those two groups largely overlap.  

      Either way, I think it’s bad sign for the candidate- neither MIles nor Clinton won Colorado.

      Also- I know plenty of voters who went to Wash Park and claimed they would also attend Bennet events when and if invited. So not sure crowd size at this point is indicative of much.  Fund raising numbers, however, are almost always useful. ANd we should be seeing some soon. (four fundraising  quarters left to election day – really three since you gotta believe the big spending will have to be budgeted nd spent by July- August at the latest.

  8. Extending the discussion on the so-called fracking fluid push polling, and how the poll is anything but a push poll.

    Apparently, to the oil and gas industry, a “push poll” is anything conducted by a company from Boulder, anything that was paid for by an environmental group, or, especially, anything that tells you something you don’t want to hear. But to me, a push poll depends only on the questions that were asked and the way they were asked. This poll asked the right questions in the right way.

    It’s not really that surprising. Most of us have never tasted fracking fluid, or consider it a substance akin to Coca-Cola (I’m sure that company was very happy with such a glowing comparison) and don’t plan on doing so in the future.

    This isn’t some controversial environmental fringe issue–people do not want to risk having fracking fluid in their drinking water without knowing for sure what it’s made of. If it’s not dangerous, then the O&G companies shouldn’t have a problem divulging the formula.

    1. .

      something like:

      “Military officers are not afraid to risk their lives for their country. but few of them are willing to risk their careers by speaking up.”

      .

      1. You’d have the option (as an Officer or NCO, doesn’t matter) to toss out one NCOER or OER. And like a credit rating, the older ones couldn’t come back to haunt you later on in your career.

        That would give you the freedom to tell your boss(es) to got screw themselves, when appropriate..

  10. WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives approved legislation Thursday that would effectively end private-lender involvement in the student-loan market, establishing the federal government as the sole provider of college loans.

    The bill introduces sweeping changes to the U.S. higher-education system and serves as the third central plank of President Barack Obama’s domestic agenda.

    …The House vote was 253-to-171, largely along party lines.

    http://online.wsj.com/article/…

    Way to build the future of the party!

    According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), if the government directly financed all federally sponsored student loans, it would save $80 billion over 10 years.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

    Way to put your corporate sponsors above the American people and your plank of ‘fiscal responsibility!’

  14. Eliminating Big Bank middlemen in the student loan process is expected to save taxpayers $80 billion over a decade, according to the CBO…and the GOP solution (the vote split along party lines)?

    Republican alternative — to keep the current lending system while studying reforms for a later date

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

    No wonder the GOP has to use fear-mongering, racist, mud slinging…they have no solutions.

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